Recipe of the Week – Asian Quinoa Slaw Salad

One of my goals this year is to find easier lunches to have on hand for grab and go purposes. I’ve struggled finding a salad that doesn’t get soggy before the week is up or one that doesn’t leave my starving an hour after I’ve eaten. Luckily, I found this recipe on the website of one of my favorite food bloggers and it ended up being the perfect salad for meal prepping lunch! Since it uses all sturdy vegetables, there was no danger of sogginess and the quinoa added some heartiness to the salad that made it feel like a full meal. It was also very easy to put together (pre-packaged greens always helps make meal prepping a cinch!) and I only had to cut up two extra vegetables. Plus, all the ingredients for the dressing are things that most people have on hand, which is great! I hate buying a jar of something that I only need a tablespoon of. Overall, this salad was basically just assembling things – lets get to it!

 

Ingredients

Quinoa

• 1 tsp Sesame Oil
• 1/3 cup Quinoa, rinsed and drained
• 2/3 cup Water

Dressing

• 1 Tbsp Almond Butter
• 1 tsp Siriacha (or more, if you like spice!)
• 3 Tbsp Maple Syrup
• 3 Tbsp Tamari
• 3 Tbsp Lime Juice
• 2 1/2 Tbsp Sesame Oil

Vegetables

• 1 Bag Coleslaw Mix (shredded cabbage and carrots – don’t use the dressing if there’s one in the bag!)
• 1 Bag Broccoli and Carrot Slaw (I love the Trader Joe’s version! You can also just use another bag of coleslaw mix)
• 1 1/2 cups of Broccoli, cut in florets and steamed
• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper, sliced thin

First, I cooked the quinoa. I toasted the quinoa in sesame oil for a couple minutes and then added in the water. Once all the water was absorbed, the quinoa was ready!

  

While the quinoa was cooking, I steamed the broccoli. I love steaming vegetables because it takes no time at all and still leaves them crisp and delicious.

Once the broccoli was steamed and the quinoa was cooked, I combined all the dressing ingredients into the bowl I was using to mix the salad in – less mess!

I added the vegetables to the dressing and mixed everything together.

Once the quinoa was cool, I mixed it in as well.

Then, it was ready to divide into tupperware for the week! The salad made enough for 4 days of lunches, which is perfect for my schedule. You could easily add more or less vegetables to make this for 5 full days or even 3 days.

My best food storage tip is GLASS TUPPERWARE. My vegetables and leftovers last so much longer in glass! This was great for lunch, but you could add chicken or shrimp to make this into a main dish.

What are your favorite lunch meal prep ideas? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy Cooking!